


A Mind Divided

by justalittlegreen



Series: Sunshine and Filth [3]
Category: MASH (1970), MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Slash, i'll be in my shower/bunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 01:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16460777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justalittlegreen/pseuds/justalittlegreen
Summary: BJ drifts back and forth between home and the present, coping however he can.disclaimer: these beautiful characters are not mine to keep, just to borrow and play with





	A Mind Divided

BJ Hunnicutt lives in a divided mind; one side is Mill Valley, Peg, and Erin, and the other is Korea. He does his best to be fully in one or the other, and much of the time, it’s easy. When he’s bent over a patient in surgery or running up to the chopper pad, there’s no room for anything else. And after those grueling shifts, twelve, fourteen hours on his feet, he collapses onto his cot with a glass of Hawkeye’s paint-thinner gin and one of Peg’s letters, closes his eyes and imagines himself across the breakfast table from Peg. Sometimes, he even rests his medical bag on his stomach, remembering Erin sleeping on him the night before he left.

To say he misses them would be such an understatement as to be a distortion. He doesn’t just miss them; he aches for them. Without them, something is missing. And yet, he’s grateful for the divide. In his most dubiously patriotic moments, he imagines that his being here is to keep Peg and Erin from ever having to know life beyond their sunny Californian home.

So he pours himself into writing letters every day that he can, even if it’s barely his signature and a hello. There’s one letter of Peg’s that he keeps carefully wrapped in waxed paper to protect it that is little more than a set of red lipstick prints on the page. He sneaks glances at it when Hawkeye’s not around, letting himself revel in the memory of her lips. And when that reveling evokes a more physical reaction than is easily dealt with in the complete lack of privacy that is one’s tent, BJ heads for the showers. Cold or hot, it really doesn’t matter; either is ultimately effective, if decidedly different levels of satisfying.

The first time he hears Hawkeye headed his way in the middle of a *hot* shower (the singing always gives him away, that Ethel Merman wannabe), BJ barely manages to finish before his tentmate swings the door wide open. Indeed, he’s frantically washing his hands under the shower spray when Hawkeye comes in. It eases his mind when Hawk doesn’t seem to notice anything out of place. He’s come out of surgery and needs a place to scrub it off.

Hawkeye steps into the stall next to BJ and grouses at the coolness of the remaining water. _I didn’t realize you were trying to run your own private spa in here,_ he says, yelping as the tepid spray reaches his more sensitive spots. BJ mutters an apology and does his best to get out quickly. He leaves to the sound of Hawkeye singing full blast, dancing around the cubicle and losing the soap more than once. BJ tries not to resent him for breaching the divide, for spoiling his moment in Mill Valley. It’s not like Hawk could know, anyway.


End file.
